New vehicles and refreshed vehicle designs are traditionally revealed annually to the public during spectacular promotional events known as auto shows. These auto shows are where the styling and features of the new vehicles and refreshed designs are first revealed to the public. Prior to such an unveiling, pre-production builds of vehicles are tested to identify and correct any issues relating to design, tooling, processes, customer usage, servicing, etc. The pre-production vehicles are also used to test the durability and reliability of the vehicle, as well as, all legal requirements of the vehicle as a whole. Such testing is conducted both in labs, on test tracks, and on public roads.
During vehicle development, and certainly before taking a vehicle out onto public roads for testing, it is common to mask or camouflage at least portions of the exterior of the vehicle in order to prevent public viewing of the unique styling and features prior to the official revealing and launch into the market. As shown in FIG. 1, it is known to utilize a soft camouflage 10 with a number of foam or acrylonitrile butadiene styrene (ABS) inserts 12 (not shown) under the soft camouflage to alter the perceived shape and styling lines of the vehicle 14, or patterned vinyl wraps/camouflage 16 covering exterior surfaces 18 of the vehicle, or a combination of these two approaches. It is likewise known to cover or mask vehicle wheels 20.
As one of the most visible and contributing features to the styling or appearance of a vehicle is its exterior lighting equipment (e.g., headlamps, front signal lamps, rear signal lamps, fog lamps, center high mounted stop lamp), the exterior lighting equipment is generally covered as well. This includes both the front and rear components of the lighting equipment. While some components 22 (e.g., backup lamps) are partially covered by camouflage 16 such that a limited area is exposed, as shown in FIG. 2, other components 24 (e.g., brake lamps) remain uncovered. The exposed areas of partially components themselves can often be covered with a mesh cloth in order to mask as much of the lighting component as possible while allowing visibility of emitted light. As a result, forward visibility of the driver and vehicle conspicuity can be adversely affected.
In order to minimize any such adverse effects, while protecting the confidentiality of the styling and features of the vehicle, including the exterior lighting equipment, a need exists for a new approach to vehicle camouflage. Such an approach would necessarily hide the vehicle styling and the exterior lighting equipment features but would provide adequate lighting equipment to ensure forward visibility and vehicle conspicuity. This may include additional exterior lighting equipment. In order to support testing of the original lighting equipment, however, the additional lighting equipment could operate in parallel and be controlled and powered, at least partially, independent of the original lighting equipment. In this manner, the original lighting equipment is continually working in a normal use state and is evaluated under that state, i.e., a real customer usage, in order to unearth any issues relating to customer usage, durability and/or reliability.
This document relates to a camouflaged vehicle having a camouflage positioned over an exterior of the vehicle and additional lighting equipment supported by the vehicle outside of the camouflage. Advantageously, this ensures the forward visibility of the driver and vehicle conspicuity during road testing in particular. Even more, the additional lighting equipment can be operated in parallel with the original lighting equipment in order to minimize any effect on testing outcomes and to ensure the legality of the vehicle, if desired.